No Guardian, I

Part 4

The Sparrow dipped dangerously underneath him as he crested the dune. The circle of vehicles was no more than a kilometer away, the bonfire in the middle burning low in the evening twilight.

It would be dark in a few minutes, Jas knew - days ended very abruptly in the wasteland - but for now, there was enough light and he did not need to turn on the headlights. The dust stirred by his passage settled down quickly enough, given that the Sparrow did not actually touch the ground.

Jas hoped he hadn't alarmed the travelers ahead. It would be very unfortunate if he'd get shot now, not by any Fallen scavengers but accidentally, by fellow human beings.

Five hundred meters away from the camp, he has been noticed. Two figures ventured towards him, openly carrying weapons. None sighted in on him. He took it as a good sign. He slowed down and came to a halt. He then dismounted the Sparrow, and walked towards the figures, arms held out on his sides in what he hoped was a non-threatening way.

The figures, swaddled in layers of cloth, resolved to be a small, confident man in his forties casually carrying a shotgun on his shoulder and a much taller Exo missing his right hand below the wrist. The stump was carefully wrapped in isolation tape. His other hand clutched a bayoneted, long-barreled handcannon.

"Sixes, you see what I see?" the man asked, in a lilting accent, the Exo. He was very pointedly not adressing Jas.

"If you mean the weird kid and his bike - yes, I see them. Seems real enough to me," replied the Exo in a low, basso voice.

"Think he's a vulture?"

"Either that or a fool," the Exo said, now in a sonorous female soprano.

The man racked the shotgun and pointed it at Jas. Jasker froze.

"You won't find anything here but a slug through your brainpan. Beat it, scavvy," the man said menacingly.

Jas felt like bolting for his Sparrow. He also felt that if he did, the man would follow up on his threat.

"You deaf? We know how you found us. You saw the way-grave, and thought you'd pick clean whatever the whisperers left behind, didn't you?"

"Wait. He looks surprised," suddenly intervened the Exo, now in a tenor. "Who are you?"

"Jas. My name is Jas," he managed.

The man smiled, revealing a missing tooth in an otherwise snow-white smile.

"Very well, Jas. Let's see your face. Take your goggles off. Slowly."

He had no other choice but to obey. He reached up and unfastened the old racing goggles he's been wearing. They came off with an unpleasant pop. The wind immediately stung his eyes and they began to water.

"He's not of the desert," the Exo said, in a perfectly-pitched baritone. "No clanmarks. Also, look how his skin burned around the goggles. He's been here for a few days at most. Where are you from, kid?"

Jas swallowed. He had no idea what would they make of him being of the City.

"Answer, kid," said the man with the shotgun. "Now."

"T-the City," stammered Jas.

"Guardian?"

The Exo's cyan eyes dimmed for a second.

"I read no Ghost," rasped the Exo.

"He could've sent it away," insisted the man.

"He would have killed us by now, were he a Guardian. You know they don't think twice before pulling a gun," the Exo's voice now flowed like honey.

"I'm not a Guardian," said Jas, trying to sound reassuring.

"Only one way to be sure," said the man and pulled the trigger.

The muzzle flash seemed obscenely bright in the waning daylight. The sound - a thunderclap of gas escaping the tight confines of the gun's chamber, pushing a dozen of high-gauge pellets to near-sonic speed in the space of a microsecond - was the loudest thing Jas had ever heard. He expected to see red, to feel pain or to simply fade away into black unconsciousness.

None of that happened.

Jas fell to his knees and wept.

"See? I told you he's no Guardian," said the Exo in a shrill, mocking voice.

***

++transcript from the voice-log of Noah Derringer, police detective 48651468/11++

++Graffiti painted across the door of the deserted flat of Marlyn, Jasker, Daito weaponsmith 3/5314 Gamma in Urban Habitat 1702, consisting of the words "You are slaves to a machine god" along with an elk skeleton atop a reversed triangle. Presumably left by Trinary Star members, although surveillance cameras failed to capture the painting process. Possibly ties in with the disappearance of the resident of the flat. Poor kid, if he had fallen in with that lot... I hope I'll find him soon enough.++